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Lives of Style
Reality Programming
Lumberjack System was front and center on a shoot in California for "Lives of Style." Four cameras, a GoPro and separate sound were logged and transferred during the course of a very busy day! All in all, over 300 GB of footage was shot by the crews and by the end of the night, the clients had a drive containing the master media, all logged and waiting for the editorial team.
Each crew consisted of one camera shooting for the wedding video for the bride and groom; the other camera in each crew was shooting the reality show "behind the scenes".
The stylish, elegant and tranquil setting, tucked away in the beautiful San Ysidro Ranch in Montecito fronted a hectic production schedule with camera operators covering over ten locations, host comments, interviews, b-roll and color.
Lumberjack kept the logging organized and saved the production many hours in post.
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Tracking Two Cameras
What was different about this long day’s shoot, is that we were tracking two crews across the different activities and locations. To be able to log each camera as they shot, both Greg and I logged independently.
At some times during the Event - such as during the ceremony - both of us logged the same Event as both cameras all cameras were shooting the Event.
At other parts of the day, we each logged an Event tied to the crew we were following.
The lesson from this shoot is to more explicitly link the logged Events with the cameras.
Economic Realities
One of the questions we’ve exercised our minds with is who “owns” logging on location. I can attest that it’s not really practical for a camera operator to log as they shoot, and in most cases the audio person won’t have hands free from the boom pole enough to log.
The obvious answer is to use the Production Assistant, or Assistant Producer who’s logging now. In which case there’s no net increase in costs at all: in fact a reduction in costs (because the editor or assistant doesn’t have to do the logging); an improvement in accuracy and consistency; and a reduction in the time-to-edit.
Unfortunately these days a lot of shows - like this one - do not have dedicated Production Assistants or Assistant Producers. Would the cost of two real-time loggers offset the cost of editor or assistant to log the material, or story producer to review and string out the material? (Remember that Lumberjack can give you person or keyword select string outs).
Two people to log, ten hour day, assume about $400 plus additional craft services and transport costs vs editor or assistant to review and log some six hours of material. At the recognized rate of 3x real time to view and log, that would be 18 hours or 2.5 days. Even if the rate were the same that’s very close to the 20 hours of real time logging. At real-world assistant or editor rates, there are significant cost savings alone. Let alone getting to the edit 2.5 days earlier!
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